Can Lidar Decide Which Potholes Buffalo Fixes First?

Sean Ryan was sworn in as the 64th mayor of Buffalo in January 2026. He was born in Buffalo and grew up in nearby Lackawanna. His father worked as a firefighter, and his mother worked as a teacher. He earned a bachelor's degree from the State University of New York at Fredonia and a law degree from Brooklyn Law School.

Before becoming mayor, Ryan spent close to 2 decades in Albany. He served in the New York State Assembly from 2011 to 2020 and then in the New York State Senate through 2025, representing districts that included Buffalo and several surrounding towns. He sponsored legislation on schools, renters, and worker protections during that time. He built his early legal career representing residents and worked for Neighborhood Legal Services and later for the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo. He also helped enforce disability rights for students denied special education services and helped compel enforcement of Buffalo's Living Wage Ordinance.

He has launched a new approach to fixing city roads and sidewalks. The plan pairs Buffalo's public works department with a private technology firm to map pavement conditions across the city. The goal is to direct repair dollars to the streets in the worst condition rather than relying solely on residents' complaints.

As mayor, Ryan oversees the city's Department of Public Works along with the budget decisions that shape how Buffalo maintains its streets, sidewalks, and public infrastructure. Since taking office, he has centered his agenda on core municipal services, arguing that residents judge city government first by whether basic repairs get done. The street mapping partnership reflects that priority and gives his administration a data set to defend future paving decisions before the Common Council and the public.

The centerpiece of his infrastructure plan is a partnership with CYVL, a company that uses lidar sensors to build a 3-D map of every city street and sidewalk. The technology can measure the depth of an individual pothole and flag sidewalk sections that fall out of compliance with federal accessibility rules.

City officials placed the cost of the mapping contract near $400,000, with a large share covered by federal grants tied to sidewalk accessibility compliance. Deputy Mayor Benjamin Swanekamp said the data will also support letters to property owners who need to bring sidewalks up to code.

The city paired the mapping effort with a joint hot-patching initiative with Erie County, aimed at delivering more durable pothole fixes than traditional cold patching. In September, Ryan unveiled a public pothole repair counter that lets residents track how many reported potholes have been filled and how many remain open.

Ryan has framed the effort as part of a broader commitment to what he calls fixing the basics, shifting the city away from a paving process shaped mainly by council input and staff observation and toward one grounded in objective roadway data. Buffalo now joins a growing list of cities using CYVL sensors to plan infrastructure spending, including Boston, Atlanta and Nashville.

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